The Life of Chuck
The Life of Chuck
A life-affirming, genre-bending story about three chapters in the life of an ordinary man named Charles Krantz.
Kevin Ward reviewedJune 30, 2025
I wanted to love this. Between the TIFF buzz, the glowing reviews, my longstanding love for Mike Flanagan’s work, and the fact that I tend to prefer Stephen King’s non-horror stories—this should’ve been a slam dunk. But The Life of Chuck never quite hit me the way it wanted to.
The final act (which is actually the first chronologically) is easily the strongest: mysterious, mournful, tinged with existential dread as the world seems to quietly crumble. It sets up an intriguing tone—a sort of dreamy apocalyptic vignette that suggests a deeper emotional payoff to come. But as we work backward through Chuck’s life, each act filling in the context of this dying universe, the cumulative effect just didn’t resonate with me.
There’s no shortage of emotional signposting—wistful dance numbers, multitudes of monologues—I see what it’s trying to do. I hear the strings being tugged. But I didn’t feel it.
Maybe it’s just me. But I kept waiting for that Flanagan magic—that grace note of sorrow or catharsis that usually floors me—and it never arrived. Expectations may have gotten the best of me with this one.